Year: 2010

I’d seen Helen dance in the CU Ballet Show last February, so I was keen to finally arrange a ballet photoshoot with her. And at a recent dance audition, I met Gabby, who was keen to join in the Cambridge Ballerina Project fun and share a shoot with Helen at the end of the academic term. Rather than postpone the shoot because of the unexpected cold weather and snow, the two were even more keen to model in the snow.

My now-regular visits to MAD Studios (now http://www.whitespacestudios.co.uk/) are simply because the studio owner keeps arranging model days with some of the best models working in the UK. Many of Monika’s portfolio pictures had found their way into my mood board of inspiring photos, so it was only natural that I’d take the opportunity to shoot with her.

After the beautiful autumnal shoot with Hanna, I arranged a similar shoot with another ballet dancer, Sinead, whom I’ve known for several years through Cambridge’s dance scene. She danced with the Norwegian National Ballet for a year before coming to Cambridge, and has been involved in Cambridge Contemporary Dance throughout her degrees here. Luckily for us, the date we picked for this shoot was yet another rare day of sunshine amidst days of grey cloud.

It seems that Autumn suddenly caught everyone’s attention, as a spate of sunshine highlighted the stunning yellow leaves on the trees, as well as those that had started to fall. I’d been wanting to shoot with Hanna for a long while, as she assisted at Jenny & Natalie’s shoot, and has supplied me with dresses for several of my recent model photoshoots (particularly the red and black dresses in Iveta’s shoot). She only had an hour free, so we shot in Jesus college and Jesus Green, which afforded wonderful locations full of autumnal splendour.

Only one day after taking 1,200 photos with Iveta, I’d been asked for a shoot by a contemporary dancer who was going to be in the area. She had unluckily acquired lots of cuts and bruises in a location shoot a few days before, but fortunately, these didn’t really interfere with the shoot. Instead of postponing the shoot to let her wounds heal, she was happy to share the studio time with other models, so I invited Ellie (a ballet dancer) and Megan (a new make-up artist) along, to join in with the dance, and to work on some beauty shots, respectively.

I bumped into a good photographer friend (well, he’s an amazing photographer), James Appleton, and he mentioned that he knew a Cambridge University student who was interested in make-up, and in building a more professional portfolio of her work. Naturally, I was happy to meet her, and not long after, we arranged a shoot together.

A contemporary dancer had booked me for a shoot at a nearby studio, and didn’t mind sharing the studio time, so I brought along Ellie (I’ve photographed her a few times as a model, and she’s also a great ballet dancer), and the make-up artist, Megan, to work on a few beauty shots. The arrangement worked well, as it takes over half an hour for each make-up change, during which time I shot with the contemporary dancer. (View those dance photos).

Here are my favourites – the first two have had a little extra attention in post-processing, as I absolutely adore how they’ve come out, and how pretty Ellie’s face looks.

Since I started shooting professional models back in February, I’ve arranged a lot of shoots through PureStorm (one of the better model-photographer networking sites, like ModelMayhem and Net-Model), and have built up a wish-list of the best models that I’d like to work with. Whenever a relatively-local studio has a model day with someone on my list, it’s hard to say no.

Thus, I headed back to MAD Studios in Chesham to shoot with Iveta Niklova, a Czech model with 6 years’ commercial and fashion experience. I’d initially planned to shoot for 2 hours, but – unsurprisingly – it went so well that we extended the shoot for another hour. Here are some of my favourites from the shoot. Many thanks (again) to Hanna W for providing the red and black dresses.

I’ve shot with Ivory Flame twice before, and this time wanted to focus on strong portraits and fashion, as well as inaugurate a new project of mine, RED. The project will comprise photos of redheads, covering a range of styles – portraits, casual shots, character studies, studio shoots and location shoots. I may also create a parallel project of non-redhead models with a strong red element to the photo (e.g. the many shoots I’ve done with a friend’s donated red dress – Katy, Dina, Ellie).

What better start to the project than a stunning redhead in a stunning red dress.